On March 4, 2014, Gabriel-Daniel Dumitrache, aka \u201cDinte\u201d (Tooth), aged 26, living in district 3 in Bucharest without an official address, left the house he shared with his mother and many other family members around 7 p.m., on his way to work, in Unirii neighborhood. An ethnic gypsy, Daniel had no education and no job, but earned his living as a \u201eparking boy\u201d and an odd-job man. On the same night (March 4 to 5), several policemen showed up at his mother\u2019s house and asked her for Daniels\u2019s ID card. About 20 minutes after the policemen left with Daniel\u2019s birth certificate, the police announced his family that he was dead.<\/p>\n
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The family accuses the police of having beaten him to death. According to official documents, the death occurred at No. 15<\/b> Stelea Sp\u0103taru Street, a former venue of Police Section 10, currently accommodating the Old Center Police Station. It also includes a room where suspects are brought in by Section 10 agents, as well as Section 10 garages. The death certificate noted that death was caused by acute anemia, massive hemoperitoneum and pathologic rupture of the spleen. The document was registered on 05.03.2014, mentioning that the death occurred on March 4, and leaving the time of death blank. <\/b><\/p>\n
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The representatives of APADOR-CH talked to Gabriel-Daniel Dumitrache\u2019s family and neighbors, with the last persons to see him before he was led to the police station, with the chief of Police Station 10 and with the chief of the Old Center Police Station. They also analyzed the related press release issued by the General Direction of the Bucharest Metropolitan Police on March 7.<\/p>\n
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Gabriel-Daniel Dumitrache lived with his bed-confined mother in one room, in the semi-basement of a building in district 3, in an area with many derelict buildings crammed together, which made it impossible not to hear next door\u2019s noises. According to his relatives, Daniel was about 1.75 m tall and had an athletic constitution. He was in good health, although he had been a drug user 6-7 years before, a habit that had sent him to jail for 1 year and 3 months. He had been treated for his addiction at the Rahova Penitentiary Hospital and was released in a very good state, which he had maintained. As an odd-job man he also helped moving furniture, for instance. Daniel\u2019s mother, whom he nursed, said that the young man left home on March 4 around 7 p.m. in perfect health, heading for the parking lots around Unirii area. That night, at 1.10 a.m. (already on March 5, therefore), the woman heard knocking on her window and saw the glare of a searchlight. The knocking came from Section 10 policemen, who asked to have one of Daniel\u2019s ID papers. When she asked them whether they were holding the boy, they allegedly answered that Daniel was retained, but not by them, rather by the Metropolitan Police. After about 10 minutes, during which a relative (Vasilica Marin, the mother\u2019s sister-in-law) brought a file containing official papers, including Daniel\u2019s birth certificate), the policemen took the document and left. According to members of the family and neighbors, about 20 policemen in 4 cars came for the ID paper.<\/p>\n
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Another 20 minutes later, three police cars returned and one policeman gave the birth certificate back to Vasilica Marin and told her Daniel was dead. \u201cYou\u2019ll find him at the Forensic Institute, go and pick him up tomorrow at 10.00\u201d. According to the woman, she started to cry in grief, so all neighbors came out from their homes and started to question the police. The men allegedly gave contradictory answers – that he had been hit by a car, that he had been held by the Metropolitan Police – then left. The family said that on the same night they inquired at the Metropolitan Police and the Traffic Police, and none of the institutions had information about any incident involving Daniel-Gabriel Dumitrache.<\/p>\n
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The next morning, on March 5, a first cousin, Dan Ionescu, and two other close family members went to the Forensic Institute between 10 and 11 a.m. to pick up the body. Dan Ionescu told the representatives of APADOR-CH that the body showed clear signs of violence: the right leg was allegedly broken under the knee, the jaw was bruised, the abdomen swollen and uncountable injuries: deeper or superficial, covered it. A friend of Daniels, who wanted to remain anonymous, said his experience as a funeral house worker allowed him to see for sure that the right leg was broken. Several members of the family who saw the body in the coffin said they saw the broken jaw and burned marks on his chests (as from electroshocks)<\/p>\n
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The family and friends of Gabriel-Daniel Dumitrache consider he was the victim of violence committed by a certain policeman (with the complicity of several others) from Section 10, whose name they did not know but who was nicknamed \u201cMoldoveanu\u201d. They say the man had hit and humiliated other gypsies, acquaintances of the family, on other occasions, at the same venue in Stelea Sp\u0103taru Street.<\/p>\n
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The family believes that Daniel was already dead when the police came to ask for his birth certificate. <\/b>To confirm this supposition, the day of his death mentioned in the death certificate was March 4, <\/b>while the police arrived at the house after midnight, therefore on March 5.<\/p>\n
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Parking boys are men who indicate available street parking spaces to drivers, in exchange for a tip. They know each other, they \u201cdo the parking\u201d in established places, avoiding to overlap each other\u2019s territory. Some of them are gypsies, some are or were drug-users, many have no ID papers, some are homeless. The only thing they all have in common is extreme poverty.<\/p>\n
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The representatives of the Association talked to five \u201cparking boys\u201d who worked in Unirii and Decebal areas. They all knew that \u201cDinte\u201d (Daniel\u2019s alias) was dead and were convinced he had been killed by a blond cop nicknamed \u201cMoldoveanu\u201d. They said they were also beaten by the same cop. One of them, \u201cChelie\u201d (Baldie), said he had met \u201cDinte\u201d (Daniel) on the evening of March 4, around 7 p.m., in the Careffour Unirea parking lot, and that Daniel had left around 9 p.m., telling him he was going to Decebal Boulevard to meet \u201cC\u0103p\u0103\u021b\u00e2n\u0103\u201d (Bighead).<\/p>\n
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\u201cC\u0103p\u0103\u021b\u00e2n\u0103\u201d \u2013 Cristian Tudor \u2013 confirmed that Daniel arrived on Decebal Boulevard around 9 p.m. but left soon afterwards to buy some sandwiches. While Dumitrache was away, a police car with a crew of two stopped by and fined him. The same car came back after Daniel returned from his shopping. The two policemen put Daniel in their car and left. According to Cristian Tudor, this happened between 10.30 and 11 p.m. at 17 Decebal Boulevard (an area with many cafes and restaurants). Tudor said he asked the police why they were taking Daniel and they allegedly answered \u201cShut up, or we\u2019ll take you, too!\u201d<\/p>\n
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The representatives of APADOR-CH wanted to find out some matters of procedure that could clarify the circumstances of Gabriel-Daniel Dumitrache\u2019s death while in custody of Section 10 policemen.<\/p>\n
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More precisely, the chief was asked whether Section 10 kept a record of persons led to the police station (an administrative measure), as required by police internal procedures, and whether a minute for contravention was signed or any other papers indicating why and for how long the person in question was deprived of freedom. The chief refused to answer any of the questions, although, obviously, they would not have impeded in any way upon a pending investigation<\/b>. He asked that the questions should be sent to him in writing.<\/p>\n
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The only information he provided was that that a suspicious death case was opened, that the Internal Control Direction of the General Police Inspectorate was notified and that there was no video surveillance system at the Stelea Sp\u0103taru Street venue. The chief also said that many of the statements made by the family and friends of the deceased were false.<\/p>\n
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The representatives of APADOR-CH also visited the Old Center Police Station (in whose courtyard the incidents leading to Daniel\u2019s death took place and where the garages and a hall used by Section 10 policemen were situated) and talked to the chief. He said that Section 10 still had a training room, the policemen\u2019s locker rooms in the semi-basement and the garages at the same address, but that the activity of the two sections did not overlap.<\/p>\n
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The chief said that Section 10 agents used the training room from the Old Center Police Station when they enforced the administrative measure of leading persons to the police station, but that he could not provide details of their activity, because they were a separate unit.<\/p>\n
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APADOR-CH considers that information in the press release[2]<\/a> issued by the General Direction of the Bucharest Metropolitan Police regarding the death of Gabriel-Daniel Dumitrache is insufficient and tardy. The press release was issued on March 7, 2014, after 6 p.m., three days after the death, and made no mention of the time of death. This is all the more suspicious as this particular item of information was also missing from the death certificate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Conclusions:<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Maria-Nicoleta Andreescu<\/p>\n Dollores Benezic<\/p>\n Adelina Bobo\u0219atu<\/p>\n <\/p>\n March 12, 2014<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Special thanks to Marian Ursan, chairman of Carusel \u2013 www.carusel.org<\/a> and also to activists from other organizations: www.rhrn.org<\/a>, https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/badd.org<\/a> , http:\/\/www.senspozitiv.ro\/<\/a>, for their support in preparing this section of the report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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